Word: self-interest
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...higher power exists is debatable, but widespread belief in one has helped humanity advance for millennia. Wade, a New York Times reporter, defends that provocative thesis with evidence drawn from biology, archaeology and anthropology. Humans may be innately selfish, he argues, but early hunter-gatherers needed to subordinate self-interest to the will of the group in order to survive, and "the solution that evolved was religious behavior"--humankind's best organizing principle. Ritual chants and dances fostered kinship and inspired tribes to battle outside threats. As language developed, people ascribed their good fortune to the supernatural, and efforts...
Sure, it will benefit Democrats to universalize voter registration, and self-interest is a much more powerful motivator than respect for rights. But the Democrats would clearly have the latter on their side as well, if they had the gall to bring the issue up. When the government takes a right away, or makes it harder to exercise, that’s a much more serious offense than an individual’s abuse of her prerogative. So, ignore conservatives’ crocodile tears over voter fraud; New Jersey may be home to money-laundering mayors and kidney-selling rabbis...
...prosperity and open societies. It was that ideal that brought my Holocaust-survivor grandparents through Ellis Island in 1949 in the hopes of rebuilding their lives and finding better opportunities for their 3-year-old daughter - my mother. These ideals have too often been trampled by greed or myopic self-interest. But the positive impact they have had on the world cannot be denied. Asia has risen to new heights of wealth and power partly because of American policy, consumers and corporate practices. As Singapore's patriarch Lee Kuan Yew once told me, "Without the United States providing security...
...Bureaucracies just don’t work,” he said. “When you build a bureaucracy, the bureaucracy ages, and the bureaucracy develops self-interest. We still don’t have an ambassador to Brazil, for example, eight months into the new administration...
...Thomas Frank, author of “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”, contends that people should ignore issues like marriage and follow their economic self-interest, which aligns with Democratic policies. But people care about culture regardless of their finances. “It’s no less ridiculous to complain about evangelical Christians in Kansas voting for Republicans than to complain about movie stars in Hollywood voting for Democrats who will raise their taxes,” said Ross G. Douthat ’02, a columnist for The New York Times...